The Pascommuck Conservation Trust
Preserving our past. Protecting our future.
The annual meeting will now be held on May 16th at City Space, 43 Main St., Easthampton and will begin at 1:00 PM. Tom Ricardi is still the guest presenter. Hope you can make it!
Pascommuck Conservation Trust has a number of beautiful site settings for memorial benches. We want to add to the welcome our conservation areas offer visitors as we look forward to 2024 and celebrating 42 years of conservation.
Your dedicated donation will purchase a sturdy bench ($1700 minimum), chair ($900 minimum), or plaque on an existing bench ($500 minimum). A plaque will honor your loved one, promote a business, or quote a favorite nature poem. Your gift will add to our Stewardship Endowment to maintain and enhance these treasured retreats.
The Endowment generates income to help cover such costs as keeping trails clear of downed trees, annual mowing to maintain bird habitat, rebuilding bridges & steps, and fighting invasive plants — all critical to ensuring our conservation areas remain welcoming, beautiful, and ecologically healthy.
An informational brochure can be downloaded here for further information.
If you would like further information and to talk with someone at PCT please use our contact form.
Pascommuck Conservation Trust has no paid staff, meaning your gifts always go directly towards protecting land, maintaining our conservation areas for public access and habitat protection, and the few unavoidable expenses such as accounting necessary to keep operating.
We have also relied almost entirely on board & volunteer hours for property upkeep. But in recent times, the added burdens of damage from severe weather, aging board members, and increased use of our conservation areas has made it necessary to supplement our own timewith contracted part-time assistance, particularly for any work requiring specialized expertise or involving heavy equipment.
We are asking for your help in building a modest endowment to supplement our regular fundraising and cover not only a portion of those contractor fees, but also materials for replacement or new bog bridges, steps, etc., clearing downed trees off trails, sign maintenance, enhancement of habitat for wildlife and native plants, and other ongoing stewardship.
The pond calendar that people were used to purchasing each year has been revised this year to include nature pictures and scannography art created by Marty Klein. The calendars are $20 and are available for purchase at the Big Red Frame gallery, 43 Main St, Easthampton, MA 01027, as well as the Farmer’s Market, 116 Pleasant St., Easthampton on January 11th. We are grateful to Sue Walz for the many years she devoted getting the pond calendars made and sold.
All of Sue Walz’s 2025 calendars were sold for a total of $540 plus $15 in donations. This will be the last year that Sue is doing the calendars. We thank Sue for her fund raising efforts over the years. Stay tuned as a new version of the calendar is being planned for 2026!.
An Easthampton homeowner has acted to protect 10 acres of state-significant habitat along the Manhan River.
On October 2nd, the land was donated to Pascommuck Conservation Trust to be set aside as an undisturbed natural area for fish, wildlife, and plants. The parcel is a complex of floodplain forest and wetlands, extending along nearly a half mile of riverfront.
Acquiring the property with his late wife in late 1999, the owner spent the last two decades observing the progression of seasons as spring floods reshaped the course of the River, late summer droughts revealed its shoreline, and animals from birds to bears traveled through the floodplain forest as the Manhan meanders from the Oxbow towards the Hilltowns.
Dianne McLane, Trust President, stated, “This gift adds protected acreage to an important wildlife corridor — it is definitely a property where “Wild Things Roam”. Expanding conservation land along the Manhan is an important undertaking and we can only thank the homeowner for their generosity and foresight in protecting such an interesting and natural part of Easthampton.”
To sustain its fragile resources, the newly donated land will not be accessible to the public. Setting the riverfront aside as a preserve provides a refuge and safe passage for wildlife in a heavily developed area, while keeping the floodplain intact reduces flooding downstream. Saving waterfront on the Manhan and along other streams in town is a goal Pascommuck has pursued since its founding in 1982.
